Out with the Son

I thought he knew what to ask for in the barbers. 
     'Two on the side and four on top,' his brother, twenty one and King of Cool, had said. And where were his manners? Fifteen years of my going on about please, thank you and making small talk to put people at their ease, seems to have been erased by puberty. Fifteen and he can only grunt at the sad eyed Polish girl, her bone coloured hair startling against her black T (scooped low enough to make the son blink rapidly.). She wears stilettos with those metal bits on the bottom, clip clopping on the tiles like she's been shod.

     'How you like?' she lisps, and the son's red slapped cheeks in the mirror tells me we're thinking the same thing. Is she offering him a sexual favour?  But my lad manages a grunt and makes circles in the air with his hand. She gets it, whatever style he's describing, and sets to.

      Behind him, on a plastic chair, tacky to the touch, I'm invisable. Men come in from the Reading damp and hang their jackets to the left,right and nearly on top of me. 'Oh, sorry,' I say. Sorry for sitting in the chair provided.

      On the chair next to me lie two newspapers, yesterday's Mirror and today's Sunday Sport. I've never read the Sunday Sport but I've always wanted to. Can anyone really walk upright with such big boobs? Did a man from Norwich really have sex with a gorilla and be living in California with her and their three children? I have to know and being invisable, no-one will notice if I pull out my glasses and have good look, will they?

     Of course I don't. I stare at a stain on the wall by a well thumbed calender. Miss Winter looks chilly in the snow with only scarlet fluffy mittens and a reindeer pom pom hat to keep her warm. Technically it's not winter, it's still Autumn but I mustn't be pendantic. It's my one vice.

     Twenty minutes later and with precisely three words being uttered by the son, the Polish girl is brushing at his neck and blowing - blowing! - rogue hairs away. He scowls at me but what can I do? 

     Time to pay. Hurrah because I have ceased being invisable. A couple of other mothers have come in with their grunting sons. The women know each other and have been whispering and glancing in my direction. It must the cardi/jacket. I bought it a few weeks ago at a car boot for two pounds. I tried to haggle but the seller wouldn't budge. 'It's Hobbs - Hobbs!' She said, almost crying at my ignorance. It must have been made by Hobbs! a long time ago, it's bobbly, the hem droops and brown is so not my colour.

     Clutching the son to stop myself going A over T on the rain slicked cobbles, I shout into the wind, 'I need a new jacket.'

     The son squeals to a halt.'What a brand new jacket?' As in not Ebay or boot fayre new.

     'What about next week's food?' He worries. You can't hide much from kids. 

     'Only joking,' I say.

     He laughs.

     Me too.